Safe Speed Forums

Don't think I'm getting my point across very well. Something like those child bollards are ridiculous but if your just off a motorway coming into an urban area traffic islands work very well at bringing speeds down and giving drivers a reminder that they are coming into an area likely to contain pedestrians.

Before ye all get into a "but you should be looking and realise anyway", motorway driving is boring so you can slip into driving subconsciously, so the idea is to give you a jolt and wake you up. Having something on footpath every 20m is overkill but every now and again has its value.

i'm struggling to think of any motorway exit that would allow you to 'slip subconciously' off the motorway and not notice the change in road, pavement, lighting, buildings that would alert you... not to mention almost all slips seem to end in a roundabout, some light controlled or a junction to 'wake you up'.

Perhaps a chance that a driver knowing the area will overlook a child who runs out into the road?

"Sorry your honour - I did not slow down, because I thought the child I subsequently knocked down and injured was a bollard!"

MADNESS!

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I've seen them in Soton too, I just clocked child-shaped bollards, but they didn't make me think anything deeper.

I think he means something along the lines of something IG posted up back in 2004 - ish. Namely - you can get used to a high speed and this feels "normal" to you. A bit like the plod trainer in late 2003 who was clocked on his way home from work at 120 mph after a day of training up plods. He got a 3 month ban as my wife recalls in early Jan 04 - as posted up by Paul on the PH site at the time. (Wildy Wild has a fantastic memory - she has reminded me of that story as we are reading the posts together here and we are at my computer in my den.)

Wildy also suggests I remind folk of her own L-Test back in Germany when she had to drive at high speed and then down in fairly graduated stretches till they reached the 20 mph town centre. It's only recently that the Germans restricted the novices. When Wildy sat her test - she had to demnstrate she could handle derestricted A/bahn "to common sense values" and I gather she was well over the ton to mark the occasion

But child like bollards? I fear these will be met with the same derision as the Swiss "motorway robot worker" But then .. as the Swiss got nasty and started to place Gatsos in these (and in other equally unsporty places like wheely bins and a "Snow White" character) - we can only hope these "children" will not get equally naff ideas. "Snow White" allegedly got more than an apple stuck down her throat... per some Swiss tabloid back in 2003 ..

Personally I have to say the signs we have seen in some areas WORK!

Let's hear it for Keswick.. New Mills (High Peak) and various others across the North West These signs simply say



[b]Please drive at 20 mph when amber lights flash[/i]


These stretches are outside the schools and operate only at peak times. As far as we have observed . these appear to WORK People respond to direct common sense and not naff gimmicks then

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Yeah what that Mad man said, he explained it better than me.

unfortunately for you i understand him even less

Yes, what happened to the flashing amber lights outside schools ? We used to have them back in the eighties, people knew what they meant and respected them. We no longer respect silly speed limits 24 hrs a day.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

The longer you are at high speed the more you get used to it. So if your on the motorway for a few hours and then go straight into urban area 30mph can feel like your doing 10mph if you had being doing 30mph for 2 hours. The idea of traffic islands etc is to increase your risk assessment and give you a jolt that your in an area that needs much slower speeds.

I've always been very doubtful about this business of "be careful when you come off a motorway as 50 mph may seem like 30 mph". In driving you frequently need to vary your speed to take account of the road conditions and most drivers take this in their stride. If you come off a dual carriageway on to a narrow country lane you will notice that and naturally slow down.

Pretty much every exit from the M60 links to a road with a speed limit of 30 or 40 mph and I'm not aware of any problems with people driving too fast because they have been doing high speeds on the motorway.

It may have been more applicable in the 1960s when there were many temporary motorway termini that linked directly to traditional single-carriageway main roads, but that is much less the case nowadays.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

These bollards are going to make drivers even less aware of kids near kerbs. If you are used to seeing kids standing about or what appear to be kids you'll start to take less notice because they become familiar. If the pavements are normally empty and there are moving kids there at some times then you are more likely to notice them. Always having these bollards there is just asking for trouble. Wait for the first child to be run over and the defence is 'well I didn't really slow down as I thought it was just another one of those bollards, till it moved and ran out in front of me...'

That's right....cry wolf too many times and what happens?......

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Anton & Teabelly, know exactly where you are coming from, again a lesson already learnt in occ H&S circles, people switch off at things that are routine, normally signage that is out of date or the like. However, on a construction site there is far more control than on the public highway so these sort of errors are corrected or minimised.

Get drivers 'switching off' at these things and as you'v eboth pointed out something similar (the very thing that they are supposedly there to protect) will end up falling foul.

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TBH you'd have to be a pretty sh1te driver to mix them up with real kids.

Once you get close to them yes. The problem is that from further away you don't know whether it is a bollard or a child with absolute certainty and you become accustomed to 'something' being close to the kerb and generally not moving. In areas without bollards then you know for certain it's a child as a child shaped thing will be a child. In bollarded areas it's a bollard or perhaps a child. That moment of doubt could be enough to make the difference between hit child and an avoided child. There is also the potential for embarrassment and rear end shunts as at least one person will be distracted then suddenly panic that a bollard is running into the road and do an emergency stop. I'm sure the local kids will all start playing being a bollard on other roads too.

Not every country has a full motorway network

This proxy substitute to proper road engineering solution to a problem is frankly a disgrace.
It will cause more problems that is solves - as many have already pointed out.

When problems are not dealt with head on and resolved properly, the original problem remains along with a whole set of new set of negative 'side-effects' and additional set of undesired bad road user behaviours.
All Councils applying these should be ashamed of itself.
There are no 'fast routes' to proper intelligent road safety.

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The proper ambers telling you tio drive 20 mph through school zone appear to work from general observation

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